The July CCTST Grand Rounds, held on July 19, 2019, featured:

• Craig Vogel, FIDSA, FRSA, Associate Dean for College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), University of Cincinnati, and Co-founder of the Live Well Collaborative

• Linda Dunseath, Executive Director, Live Well Collaborative

Craig and Linda presented: “Full Integration of Design into Patient Centered Care at Cincinnati Children's Hospital?”

The Live Well Collaborative follows a design thinking/translational research model that utilizes user-centered research to develop product, service and system solutions for living well across the lifespan, with an expertise in the 50 plus consumer market.

Presentation Learning Objectives:

1. Through case study examples learn how the design process is used to impact patient centered care

1. Begin to use a mapping tool to organize your own team challenge for a future Design Thinking 101 workshop

Target Audience: Physicians, healthcare practitioners, researchers, community health advocates

Click here for a PDF of the presented material.

New complimentary webinar from Science:

Selling without selling out: How to communicate your science

You are invited to hear a panel of experts on May 29, 2019 in this live, online educational seminar. For more information and complimentary registration visit: webinar.sciencemag.org

• Wednesday, May 29, 2019

• 12:00 - 1:00 pm (EST)

• Register Now!

About the Webinar:

Science is relevant to every person—it is just that many people don’t realize it. The volume and complexity of modern science, and the speed at which nonsense (nonscience) is transmitted, make the dissemination of accurate scientific concepts a challenge. Add fake science to the mix and one can understand why the public is confused. This confusion can have dire consequences—mistrust of vaccinations resulting from discredited and retracted scientific publications has caused unnecessary suffering and thousands of deaths, while misrepresentation of climate science has devalued the impact of global warming and its perilous implications. The most attention-grabbing headlines in the media are often about scientists who have dubious motives or have committed ethical atrocities—whether it’s DNA editing of humans, a wholly unscientific chocolate diet, or debunked cold nuclear fusion. To counter such misinformation, scientists need to take the initiative and proactively communicate their science in an accurate and understandable manner. This webinar provides guidance on how to best communicate science to your peers and the public. Stand up and tell the world about what you do. Help everyone understand how science makes society better.

Participants:

Laura Lindenfeld, Ph.D.

Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science

Stony Brook, NY

Alexia Youknovsky

Agent Majeur

Paris, France

Laura Helmuth, Ph.D.

The Washington Post

Washington, DC

Matthew S. Savoca, Ph.D.

Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University

Pacific Grove, CA

Register at:

webinar.sciencemag.org

Questions? Email: webinar@aaas.org.

Produced by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office and sponsored by Fondation IPSEN.

Story courtesy of University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, Dean's List Weekly News

Brett Kissela, MD, CO-PI of the CCTST's Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), Professor and Chair of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research at University of Cincinnati, has been accepted into the 2019-2020 Class of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Council of Deans Fellows. The fellowship program was created to enhance the development of future leaders in academic medicine. It is designed for senior faculty members, including department chairs and assistant and associate deans, who are interested in being considered for deanships in the future.

Through the program, Kissela will receive mentoring from current medical school deans, make two visits to the medical schools of dean mentors, participate in meetings of the AAMC Council of Deans and its administrative board to learn about the strategic goals and activities of the council and participate in the Executive Development Seminar for Deans. He also will complete a leadership project.

Genes are what make each person unique; they control our outward appearance and internal functions, such as how our bodies react and respond to medicine. Because of different genetic makeups, not all people respond to medications in the same way. When drugs are approved for market, it must first be proven that on average the medication and recommended dose is affective in most patients. But this means that there is still a portion of people who don’t experience the intended effects of the drug; they either have no response at all or have an adverse reaction. Sander Vinks, PharmD, PhD, CCTST (the effector arm of the University of Cincinnati CTSA hub) member and Director of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) explains, “as clinicians, we treat individual patients and we know that there are a lot of variables, not only in how patients handle drugs but also how they respond to them.”

Precision Medicine paired with Pharmacogenetics has the power to address this issue. According to the NIH National Library of Medicine, Precision Medicine is a quickly advancing medical approach for individualized disease treatment and prevention that focuses on a person’s genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. Pharmacogenetics focuses on the way genes respond to drugs. Also at play is Pharmacokinetics (PK), which is what the body does to the drug, and Pharmacodynamics (PD), which is the drug effect, or what the drug does to the body (Figure 1). Understanding this information, combined with knowledge of the patient’s genetic makeup, can therefore help clinicians prescribe the right medicine at the right dose.

An additional pharmacological challenge is that little research has been published on the dosing and safety of medications used to treat neonates, or newborn children. Dosing for neonates typically scales adult and pediatric pharmacological data to estimate a dosage that may be more appropriate for a newborn, but this can also lead to ineffective or unsafe dosing (Euteneuer JC, et al). Issues such as this led Dr. Vinks and a team of colleagues at CCHMC to develop the translational pain management tool, NeoRelief.

Using pharmacogenetics with a model-based PK/PD algorithm, NeoRelief was developed. NeoRelief is a decision support platform, embedded into electronic health records (EHRs), with the ability to predict and control precision dosing of morphine in real time for newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The goal of the platform is to help clinicians recognize the importance of optimal dosing and the impact of morphine on a patient’s response to pain. The team envisioned that NeoRelief would provide a real-time comparison of pain scores with the medication dosage and how the patient’s body interacted with the morphine. To achieve this vision and make these complicated elements more actionable, the team worked with a local business to create a dashboard that translates the comparisons into a clear readout, which includes heart rate, blood pressure, morphine dose, predicted concentration, and pain scores. NeoRelief can now bring all this information to the bedside to assist with medical actions and decision making.

The NeoRelief tool was developed by a multidisciplinary team of experts from CCHMC, including individuals from Neonatology, Clinical Pharmacology, Pharmacy, Medical Informatics, Information Services, Innovation Ventures, and the consulting firm, Medimatics. This project was initially funded by the CCTST Pilot Translational and Clinical Studies Program (previously known as T1) in 2014. Additional funding from the CCHMC Innovation Fund and the Peri-Natal Pilot Fund was acquired to build NeoRelief, and funding from the Gerber Foundation is being used to prospectively evaluate its impact. NeoRelief now has state funding to move to the next level into commercialization.

Using the same precision dosing model that guided NeoRelief, additional tools, applications, and wearables are being developed for the measurement and precision dosing of other medications. Dr. Vinks and his team are working with regulatory officials to make model-informed precision dosing a common clinical practice.

For more information on the precision dosing model, visit CCHMC Stream to watch Dr. Vinks Pediatric Grand Rounds presentation, “Personalized Medicine through Model-informed Precision Dosing: What’s Here – What’s Near?”, or review the publication, “Suggestions for Model-Informed Precision Dosing to Optimizing Neonatal Drug Therapy”.

References:

Euteneuer JC, Kamatkar S, Fukuda T, Vinks AA, Akinbi HT. Suggestions for Model-Informed Precision Dosing to Optimize Neonatal Drug Therapy. The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2018;59(2):168-176. doi:10.1002/jcph.1315.

Vinks, AA. Personalized Medicine through Model-informed Precision Dosing: What’s Here – What’s Near. CCHMC Stream. 2018.

What is precision medicine? - Genetics Home Reference - NIH. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/precisionmedicine/definition. Published April 30, 2019. Accessed May 8, 2019.

Over 100 participants from across the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati community organizations attended the April 4th Virtual Meeting on Social Determinants of Health hosted by the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training’s Center for Improvement Science (CIS).

Participants convened via WebEx from both the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati community organizations.

University of Cincinnati attendees were present from:

• College of Allied Health Sciences

• College of Arts and Sciences

• College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services

• College of Medicine

• College of Nursing

• Institute for Policy Research
  

Cincinnati community organization attendees were present from:

• All Children Thrive Learning Network at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC)

• Bethany House Services

• Community Action Agency

• Council on Aging

• Health Collaborative

• Kroger

• Mercy Health

• Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio

• Progressive Health Care Systems

• Tri-Health

• United Way of Greater Cincinnati

• Xavier University
  

The two-hour session included five short presentations outlining current initiatives being undertaken by UC, CCHMC and other community organizations in the field of social determinants of health. Presentations were given by:

1. United Way of Greater Cincinnati

2. UC College of Nursing

3. All Children Thrive Learning Network at CCHMC

4. UC College of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine

5. Health Collaborative

The session also included a general discussion about potential collaborations and next steps. The CIS team committed to creating a repository of resources from this, and future sessions, and is organizing follow-up meetings to help newly established groups build collaborations and move forward on research, educational, service and care, and product development initiatives.

The goal of these virtual events is to create communication and collaboration networks to support broad-based initiatives, support faculty and investigators, and to support the missions of the organizational participants. The session presentations can be viewed on the CIS website.

The CIS will be assessing the value and impact of collaboration building initiatives on the creation and effectiveness of social/professional networks, the development of collaborative projects, grants, and educational programs, and the overall productivity of individuals and organizations.

For more information about the CIS, contact Jack Kues or Laura Hildreth.

The April CCTST Grand Rounds, held on April 19, 2019, featured speaker Charles Hokayem, PhD, Administrator for the Kentucky Research Data Center and Economist in the Center for Enterprise Dissemination at the U.S. Census Bureau. Dr. Hokayem presented: “Research Possibilities in the Kentucky Research Data Center”.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain an overview of the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers

• Learn about the health, demographic, and business data available in the Kentucky Research Data Center

• Learn about the process of writing a proposal to access data

Target Audience: Physicians, healthcare practitioners, researchers, community health advocates

Click here to watch the presentation.

Click here to learn more about the Kentucky Research Data Center.

The KL2 Research Scholars Mentored Career Development Award is offered to highly qualified junior faculty pursuing careers in clinical and translational research. The KL2 program provides mentorship, career development opportunities, and financial support for salary and research-related expenses for up to two consecutive years. During the award period, Scholars are expected to pursue their own K23 (or similar individual career development awards) or R01 grants. Also involved in the Program are CT2 Scholars, which have the same goals and requirements as the KL2 but have a different funding structure.

All 8 of the current KL2 and CT2 Scholars are doing exceptional work across the Academic Health Center. Below are a few recent Scholar highlights:

Scholar Highlight:

Aristide Merola, MD, PhD, Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, has been an appointed KL2 Scholar since 2017. Dr. Merola was recently involved in conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine if the results of subthalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery vary among different forms of Parkinson’s disease. DBS is a therapy used to improve motor functions in patients with Parkinson’s disease. The project, titled, “Association of Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation With Motor, Functional, and Pharmacologic Outcomes in Patients With Monogenic Parkinson Disease”, involved 518 patients from 17 published studies. The analysis found that the DBS treatment yielded similar results in motor function changes, but the dopaminergic doses, activities of daily living, motor complications, and cognitive function outcomes varied in patients with different gene mutations (LRRK2, GBA, or PRKN). The analysis was published in JAMA Network in February 2019; click here for more details.

Dr. Merola was also invited to present at the National German Meeting of Parkinson’s Disease in March 2019, where he spoke on, “Efficient Directional DBS Programming: Translating Directional DBS best programming practices in Clinical Studies to the Clinic with the InformityTM interface”.

ACTS Meeting:

The Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) hosts a national meeting each year in Washington D.C. with the mission of bringing together all of the disciplines involved in clinical and translational research, for the shared benefits of networking and education. Four CCTST KL2/CT2 Scholars presented at the 2019 meeting in March:

• Moises Huaman, MD, MSc, poster presentation: Mycobacterium bovis Bacille-Calmette-Guérin infection aggravates atherosclerosis

• Stephanie Merhar, MD, MS, poster presentation: Reduced structural and functional connectivity in infants with prenatal opioid exposure

• Timothy Phoenix, PhD, poster presentation: Brainstem In Utero Electroporation Models of Pediatric Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma

• Elizabeth Kramer, MD, PhD, platform and poster presentation: TGFbeta, Early Cytokine Dysregulation, and Airway Smooth Muscle Dysfunction in Cystic Fibrosis

The March CCTST Grand Rounds, held on March 15, 2019, featured speaker Cole Brokamp, PhD, Assistant Professor, Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr. Brokamp presented: “Decentralized and Reproducible Geocoding and Characterization of Community and Environmental Exposures at Scale”.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what geomarkers are and how they can be utilized in clinical and translational research

• Understand the privacy concerns and protected health information regulations surrounding the use of addresses and geocodes in research

• Understand the capability and availability of DeGAUSS, a free and open source software tool designed for HIPAA-compliant geomarker assessment within the Academic Health Center

Target Audience: Physicians, healthcare practitioners, researchers, community health advocates

Click here to watch the presentation.

NCATS is accepting pre-proposals to collaborate with the Center’s intramural scientists to advance promising compounds, drug candidates, and human cell-based models for pain, addiction, and overdose through pre-clinical development. The research collaborations are part of the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term℠) Initiative.

The first pre-proposal deadline is March 18, with full proposals due on April 22. (Pre-proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis - second pre-proposal deadline is July 18, 2019)

• View the announcement to learn more.

• Learn more about NCATS Translational Research Collaboration Opportunities through NIH HEAL.

Content received from NCATS CTSA Program

The February CCTST Grand Rounds, held on February 15, 2019, featured speaker, Tiffani Johnson, MD, who presented: “Rated R: The Impact of Racism on Child Health”. This Grand Rounds presentation was part of the 2019 Health Equity Day. Dr. Johnson's presentation was one of the highest attended CCTST Grand Rounds, with more than 150 people in attendance.

Click here to watch the presentation.

As a program within the CCTST, the Center for Improvement Science (CIS) aims to develop collaboration initiatives. Connecting investigators to resources and collaborations is a need across the CCTST partner institutions and the community. To address this need, the CIS developed The Collaboration Network to overcome institutional and disciplinary barriers to connecting with colleagues with complementary interests.

The Collaboration Network (TCN) is a growing group of investigators, clinicians, and faculty that meet weekly to learn about each other, CCTST resources, and funding opportunities. The Thursday morning meetings take place in the Medical Sciences Building (MSB) on the UC Academic Health Center campus. WebEx is offered for those who are unable to participate in-person. Members of the group receive a weekly agenda and can choose to participate based on the topics and their availability. Guests and experts are frequently invited to participate in order to find collaborators or to provide information about a service or resource. On a monthly basis, the TCN highlights one of its members in the “Member Spotlight” session, in which a member presents their work, research, needs, and interests in collaboration. These sessions will be archived on the CIS website as a resource for TCN members and others.

The newest initiative of the TCN is a quarterly, topical session with invitees from across the university, other CCTST partner institutions and community organizations. The inaugural quarterly session took place on January 17, 2019. It had 82 participants (based upon login information for the program). The topic of the session was Aging. The following colleges, institutions, and organizations participated:

University of Cincinnati Colleges and Units: College of Allied Health Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, Blue Ash Campus, Clermont Campus, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, College of Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, College of Engineering and Applied Science, College of Medicine, and College of Nursing.

Other Institutions and Organizations: Cincinnati Council on Aging, Episcopal Retirement Services (Marjorie P. Lee Residence), Live Well Collaborative, Maple Knoll Communities, Procter and Gamble, Tri-Health (Good Samaritan Hospital), UC Health (UC Medical Center-Evidence Practice Council), and the Cincinnati VA Medical Center.

The two-hour session included four short presentations from different locations: 1) Allied Health Sciences, 2) DAAP, 3) Nursing, and 4) Live Well Collaborative (including presentations by Live Well, P&G, and Council on Aging). The session also included a general discussion about potential collaborations and next steps. The CIS committed to gathering information on participants, creating a repository with the recording of the session, slide sets, and other resources. The CIS is creating a website that will organize these resources and those from future quarterly meetings. The CIS team is also organizing “next-step” meetings to help the group move forward on educational, research, and practice initiatives. The goal of these quarterly events is to create communication and collaboration networks to support broad-based initiatives, support faculty and investigators, and to support the missions of the organizational participants. The session and presentations can be viewed at: https://cctst.uc.edu/programs/cis/collaboration.

The CIS will be assessing the value and impact of TCN initiatives on the creation and effectiveness of social/professional networks, the development of collaborative projects, grants, and educational programs, and the overall productivity of individuals and organizations.

For more information about the TCN, contact Jack Kues or Laura Hildreth.